Reaching Energy Freedom and growing your own food.

Flick mixer taps and wasted energy

During a workshop on home energy efficiency Maurice Beinat from Ecomaster mentioned his annoyance with flick mixer taps. It didn’t get much of a murmur from the audience but he has my full sympathy. The issue is that the casual user of a flick mixer tap usually has it in the neutral or even hot position so that a few seconds of hand washing draws hot water which never reaches the tap. That heat is lost as it sits in the pipe. It is a complete waste of energy.

We had this situation in the staff bathroom at work and despite some time spent on gentle encouragement to keep it in the cold position unless you really want to wait for the hot water, the tap always drifted to the dark side, I mean hot side.

In the end a more permanent solution was needed- I disconnected the hot water inlet so now the staff can move the tap as much as they like and everyone is happy.